How are Kino and Juana compared in The Pearl by John Steinbeck?
This is a great question. In many ways Kino and Juana are the same. They are both basically simple people. They are content with life. They are committed to their traditions and cultural values, and they have good work ethics. For instance, Juana is a submissive and supportive wife and Kino is a hard working husband and father.
What change all of this and bring out the differences in their character is the scorpion bite of Coyotito and the discovery of the great pearl.
What makes them different is that Kino is only able to see the positive element of the pearl, where as Juana is able to see that the pearl for all its beauty is also destructive. For example, it never crosses Kino's mind that the pearl can bring more problems. It never occurs to him to throw the pearl away. Here is a quote of how Kino...
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view the pearl:
"In the pearl he saw Coyotito sitting at a little desk in a school, just as Kino had once seen it through an open door. And Coyotito was dressed in a jacket, and he had on a white collar and a broad silken tie. Moreover, Coyotito was writing on a big piece of paper. Kino looked at his neighbors fiercely. 'My son will go to school,' he said, and the neighbors were hushed. . . ."
As the novella progresses, Juana is different as she is able to see problems in the pearl. She at one point wants to throw it away, but Kino does not allow her. He even hits Juana, at his low point, to get the pearl back.
What role do Juana and Kino play in their relationship in The Pearl by Steinbeck?
Juana acts as a foil to her husband, Kinno. In a sense, she plays the traditional role of the mother as the heart of the family. She is cautious in her attitudes, feeling that it is "not good to want a thing too much" when Kino dives for the big pearl that can pay a doctor. After Kino finds the "Pearl of the World,"she goes immediately to the child and shows her husband her discovery that the swelling of the scorpion bite is receding.
She senses the evil much before Kino. When the doctor comes, in a symbolic gesture, she "stood up from the fire and backed away as he entered, and she covered the baby's face with the fring of her shawl." And, while Kino hears "the music of evil," Juana intuitively understands,
"This thing is evil...This pearl is like a sin! It will destroy us." (Part III)
As the evil events unfold, Juana tries to rescue "something of the old peace, of the time before the pearl," while Kino vows not to be cheated. Juana understands that the spiritual values of family are far more important than any material values. In this way, Juana and Kino serve to develop Steinbeck's theme of the evil of materialism as Kino's naivete perpetuates the danger and Juana's intuitive sense cautions against it.
What themes do Kino and Juana demonstrate in John Steinbeck's The Pearl?
Kino and Juana's relationship demonstrates the power of love to overcome the most serious of adversities. Despite their extreme poverty, theirs is a close relationship. They may not have much in life, but they have each other, as well as their son, Coyotito.
However, Juana is different to Kino in that she understands fairly early on that the valuable pearl will bring them nothing but bad luck. Kino doesn't understand this until it's too late, and until then, he inadvertently puts his family in danger by hanging onto the pearl in the forlorn hope that he will somehow get a fair price for it. As a result, Kino and his family are hunted down like animals by unscrupulous pearl traders and their hired thugs, with tragic results.
At no point, however, does Kino and Juana's relationship fundamentally change. If anything, their numerous bad experiences bring them closer together. It's not an ideal situation, to be sure, but it's often in cases of the greatest hardship and adversity that the underlying strength of a relationship truly emerges. And so it is in this case. By the end of the story, Kino and Juana have lost the pearl as well as their son, but they still have each other.